Another day at the NEC

Combined two events this time, but still not as much walking as the other day, so not so tiring.

The first was a hobby and craft trade show, looking for anything new for both canals and campervans. There could well be cross stitch kits for both categories in the near future.

The second one was the Boat Caravan and Leisure show. Not too much here for the inland waterways enthusiast, but plenty for the caravan, motorhome and tent people. Although looking at the prices of the new campervans/motorhomes I won’t be swapping my old Renault campervan just yet.

Spring Fair, NEC

Spent a leg aching day yesterday walking around the majority of the exhibition halls at the NEC, Birmingham, looking for anything new in the canal and campervan ranges, and as far as the general gift manufacturers are concerned, campervans are more popular than canals.

The only items new for the canals that I spotted were a few jigsaws, so they should be appearing in the catalogue in the near future. Plenty of stands had campervan stuff, keyrings, fridge magnets, clocks, cushions etc.

The main problem for both canal & campervan stuff is that it represents a very small part of the range offered by the company, and quite a few of them have minimum order quantities and costs that are £250-£300 or higher, and just spending that amount on the few items that you want means that you would have to buy more than you really want or could sell in a couple of years. So unless you can find a wholesaler that stocks these items then you don’t stock them.

The downside of the wholesaler stocking them is that every other shop on the waterways etc., is also stocking the item, so you don’t have something different to everybody else.

The 2011 catalogues haven’t appeared from the waterways’ wholesalers yet, so I don’t know what new stuff they may have come up with.

New Year, New Blog

Welcome to this first post of my new blog.

The intention is to use this blog as another way of keeping people informed of changes to my site, including new stock, deleted stock. directory additions and changes to the structure of the whole site. There may even be special offers occasionally.

New categories will be added to make things easier for you to find once new posts have been made in that category.

The blog will become active from February 1st, and if you want a monthly update on new stuff, then you can always sign up to my newsletter by entering your email address in the box on the home page of my site.